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Stories of Giants: The Growing 25 Year Legacy of Michigan Solar Car

The University of Michigan Solar Car Team has been fighting to be recognized as the top solar car team in the world, an accolade it has yet to earn over its 25-year history of racing.

While the team has established a strong lineage of engineers, business leaders, managers, and creatives over the years, it continues to go through an ebb and flow of success and failure in its path to perfection.

This constant change in the tide in the past has elevated the legacies of the team's successful racers to those of giants whose stories help inspire the current team members to push the bounds of what seems possible in shaping their car and their team. But the failures just as significant a role in the future victories of the team as it continues to learn how to be perfect in order to win the World Solar Challenge.

Penalties in hindsight

Long-time Michigan Solar Car Team mentor Chito Garcia shakes the hand of Tokai’s driver after the Japanese team overtook Aurum with 30 miles to go, nabbing third place. Photo by Evan Dougherty. 

Because this was such a tight race, penalties may have played a role in the outcome.

As we've said before, this was the closest World Solar Challenge in the race's history. In 2013, Nuon won by several hours. But his time, it won by minutes and the top five teams finished within 80 minutes.

To get a better understanding of how penalty calls are made and what exactly happened with the top teams this year, we talked to chief safety officer, Peter Schloithe.

An incident between first- and second-place teams Nuon and Twente was much discussed after the race. The teams finished just minutes apart. Twente reports that its solar car driver had to slam on the brakes after Nuon's car merged back into its lane after passing. The vehicles were approaching a no-passing zone.

"We had to brake to make it safe," said Twente spokesperson Justine Wolters. "It didn't feel right. We don't want to look like bad losers, but it's still a bit sad that it had to be like this."

Passing opponents on the road is obviously fine, but it's not supposed to require solar cars to brake. Accelerating back up to intended set speed uses more energy than maintaining speed, and these cars are playing to finish with empty batteries. They don't have extra energy to burn. 

Schloithe confirmed that it occurred, but he said GPS data shows Twente speeding up during the maneuver (which is a no-no), leaving the fault of the incident ambiguous. Ruling on the field: no penalty. 

If you've been following here, you know about the incident with the squads jockeying for third—Michigan and Tokai. To recap: Tokai's Challenger solar car attempted to pass Michigan's caravan before Michigan had confirmed it was safe. Challenger pulled into the passing lane, only to be greeted by an oncoming vehicle. Challenger quickly veered back to safety, but in the process, ran Michigan's Chase vehicle off the road. "Their solar car was our Chase vehicle for a while," said Perry Benson on the Michigan team. 

Photo courtesy of Punch Powertrain.

Tokai apparently served 15 minutes for it. And this was its second penalty. Tokai appealed, arguing that a tarp in a trailer behind Michigan's vehicle was obscuring its radio channel. Didn't fly with the refs. That said, Schloithe doesn't think 15 minutes was enough, considering the severity of the incident. (While he is the chief safety officer, it’s the clerk of the course who decides how long penalties will be.)

"I think they should have gotten more time for that," he said.

Why didn't they? Perhaps because the clerk ruled on it prior to receiving any photos or video footage of it, he explained. In any case, it's too late to change the ruling.

Tokai, which beat Michigan by about four minutes, got 15 for its second penalty. Punch Powertrain was held back a full hour for abruptly overtaking another team. It already had been given a short penalty for its media vehicle driving recklessly. The team appealed, to no avail.

Punch finished in fifth place with a time of 39 hours and 19 minutes. It came in just 24 minutes after Michigan. Had its 1-hour penalty been more like 15 minutes, the place order could have been different.

Since questionable moves are a part of solar car racing in the same way they are part of football, a process for both assigning penalties and protesting them are baked into the design of the race. Observers who ride with the teams watch their behavior on the road. They report any sketchy or unsafe actions to mission control back in Adelaide. Observers always give written descriptions. They include photos or video if they have it. Then the clerk of the course decides how long to detain the penalized team at its next mandatory control stop.

The process is quite subjective. It depends on how an incident is described, and, also, how jumpy an observer is. The fact that there's not always visual evidence means it isn't always a just process. And there's no rubric to help observers assess severity or for the clerk to standardize penalty times. The American Solar Challenge rules are a bit more regimented in that regard.

Schloithe says the WSC has looked at standardizing penalties, but they haven't been able to come up with anything workable.

"I'd still like to see a scale," he said. But I don't know how to do it to make it fair. Every incident is so different."

The teams are not dwelling on the technicalities. 

“Before the race, if you had said I’d be happy with fourth, I’d have said ‘absolutely not,’” said Michigan’s Michael Katz. “But having seen how tough this race is and how much we fought for it, I’m proud of how we finished.”

Weigh in on tumblr.

Post by Nicole Casal Moore, Michigan Engineering science writer (@ncm140) and Cara Gonzalez, Michigan Engineering web writer (@bookofcara).

Below: In keeping with tradition, students from Michigan and Tokai jump in the fountain near Victoria Square in Adelaide at the finish line. Photo by Evan Dougherty.

FINAL RACE DAY: A bittersweet ending

Team leader Pavan Naik congratulates driver Ryder Liu after he crosses the finish line in fourth place.

Michigan hung onto third place until the last 30 miles of their 1,800-mile journey.

Clouds had covered our campsite on the morning of the final race day, so the team wasn’t able to get as much of a charge as they would have liked. Nevertheless, the mood was cheerful. Silly, even.

“One sad sunbeam,” one team member said, pointing towards the mountains in the distance at a small opening in the clouds.

“It’s charging a cow,” another added.

Everyone knew they were headed back to civilization and that the team and the car had come so far. The closest competitor Tokai would have the same weather, too, so we all anticipated cruising into Adelaide in our current position, with team Tokai about 12 miles behind us. 

But then, shortly after launch, some chatter about a motor came over the radio. It wasn’t clear there was a problem until we in the media van heard Aurum’s set speed was around 52 mph. The previous afternoon, we’d been doing 65 or higher.

Michigan’s media van hung back in Tokai’s caravan to clock it. (This is common. We assumed a Scout van from Tokai was up with Aurum.)

Tokai’s Challenger was going 66. Uh-oh. It was quiet in our van. 

As the miles passed, we reported Challenger’s position to the rest of Aurum’s caravan. The tone of the “copy that”s got gloomier as the number of kilometers between the teams got smaller. Traffic picked up. Challenger seemed to fishtail in the wind. At one point, a semi merged between it and its Chase vehicle.

With about 35 miles to go, the rival car was upon us. It passed, and team leader Pavan Naik, who was driving the media van, rested his head on his hand.

Challenger in the right lane passes Aurum. Photo by Evan Dougherty.

The media van passed both caravans ourselves. Tokai’s driver waved. Maybe he does that to all passing media vans.

There had been talk of penalties for the Japanese team, and we held out hope there were minutes the team hadn’t serve. Minutes that would be added to its finish time. All Michigan needed were minutes.

At the finish, though, officials weren’t aware of any penalties.

Tokai’s team was celebrating. Just last night, they had been strategizing about how they could possibly overtake Michigan, said team translator Ahmed Ashour. “We didn’t think there was a way.”

Yet here the teams were in Adelaide, the blue and white ahead of the blue and maize. Michigan’s final time was 34 hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds. We think Michigan finished closer to the leader than ever before. Tokai’s time was about four minutes faster that U-M’s.

While the team was disappointed, the students didn’t let the place-order dampen their pride. They had finished fourth of 29 teams among an elite class of engineers and adventurers. And it had been so tight that in other years, their time would have earned them a spot on the podium.

“I’m proud that we kept it this close,” said head strategist Leda Daehler. “It was so, so close. Any little mistake made a difference and this year we had a couple mistakes that added up. Other years, they might not have mattered. But I’m proud of this car we built. And I’m proud of everyone on the team. We did a great job.”

Michigan was the first American team to cross the finish line. Photo by Evan Dougherty.

Congratulate the team on tumblr. 

Day 4: Sprint to the finish

Camped between the Southern Ocean and the Flinders mountain range, Aurum is situated just 225 km from the finish line of a race that’s been two years in the making.

The team’s mood is lighter tonight. When they came to the campsite, Ryder Liu emerged from the Aurum’s driver canopy, smiling and recounting being stuck behind a road train. Jokes flew. We saw more smiles than we have all race. Pavan Naik, project manager, said about team’s outlook, “It’s pretty cheerful. We’re almost done—we just need to stay in this together and finish it together.”

Heading into Adelaide on Day 5, there is a 110 kph speed limit that tends to solidify the positions from this point in the race. All four leading teams—Nuon, Twente, Michigan and Tokai—are capable of hitting that speed.

While they'd be proud to finish third, Michigan’s solar car team had higher ambitions this year. "I always say I want to beat the Dutch. Now there are two Dutch teams!" head strategist Leda Daehler said, scuffing the ground but smiling as she added, “Nothing’s impossible.”

That is true, but Aurum hasn’t sat in the same control stop with them since the Kulgera stop—it’s only ever been their names on top of the notice boards. And time gaps between them and us have grown larger each stop. They are over 50 minutes ahead. If they have enough charge in the morning, they can easily match our speed and stay far in front of us.

It might seem strange to first-timers to solar racing—a race where winners are often foregone conclusions by Day 3 or 4? Daehler points out that the World Solar Challenge was meant to be less of a race and more a test of endurance. It used to be about making it to the finish line. It's not designed to be about the order of finishing. Case-in-point: the organizers weren't initially counting the time to seconds. They've never had to before. But this year's hairs-breadth race demanded it.

If Michigan can hold onto third tomorrow, it’ll be the first time it’s beat Tokai since the Japanese team has become a strong, consistent presence at the World Solar Challenge podium.

A lot remain up in the air: Will Tokai overtake Michigan? Will Twente overtake Nuon? And what in the world is the weather going to be?

We expect to be in Adelaide by noon, potentially as early as 10:30 here. Race coverage will start at around 6:30 p.m. EDT in the States.

Team mentor Chito Garcia talks with team member John Cha who is drinking breakfast at dawn. Photo by Evan Dougherty.

DAY 4: The last full racing day

What did sunrise bring the team?

Some clarity. "And better breakfast," said crew chief Arnold Kadiu. Because the bread for lunch PB&J went moldy, some team members stopped by a grocery store in Alice Springs yesterday. They brought back muffins from the bakery to go with the typical energy shakes and cereal.

Kadiu stood by the solar car in red-dirt-covered clothes and a plastic backpack of water, ready to spritz the array when the last spray of droplets evaporates. For him and the other upperclassmen on the team, today is their last full day of racing with a team they've been working with for two years.

"It's coming to an end," he said. "It feels odd. But whatever happens, we're doing our best."

Across the campsite, head strategist Leda Daehler sat in the Chase vehicle running simulations on the giant monitor she has affixed to the back of the driver's seat. This is her last full racing day as well. How does that feel?

"It's weird," she said. And her eyes welled up.

Daehler outlined what would have to happen for Michigan to catch up to the leaders, who were 40 km ahead at the start of racing today.

"Unless they're really low on power -- unless they were at zero last night -- they're probably going to be going as fast as we are today. But if they have to pull over to fix something that could play in our favor."

She pointed out that none of the other teams have driven this stretch ahead before. And we have.

"The first time we did it we had to slow down," Daehler said.

Drivers can feel the direction of the wind before it starts to affect the car, and they steer to correct for it, explained Ryder Liu, who will pilot Aurum this afternoon. It's not easy, though. We can even feel the wind in our media van. A gust pushed Generation off the road and into a ditch in 2013. The car was approaching the Coober Peedy control stop.

The winds were high as Aurum approached the same spot -- a sharp turn with a roadside ditch. And it glided safely and swiftly by.

Day 4: Sun strategy by the clouds

The Stuart Highway is meant for solar racing. Sun is abundant; it’s a blanket of sweet solar radiation to feed the solar car’s array. But it’s not without “atmospheric losses”—namely, dust like the red, powdery Outback dirt and the occasional cloudy weather.

How much does it matter? Jeff Cwagenberg, team meteorologist, believes it can change the course of a race. “Weather can make a huge difference in the amount of time it takes to finish the race, and even how well you perform compared to the competition.”

Cwagenberg and head strategist, Leda Daehler, work closely together over the course of the race to adjust their strategy to the weather. To strategists, the weather is both a resource and an opponent.

“If you know that further down the route you are going to be experiencing clouds, it could be advantageous to drive slower under the sun- saving battery for when you can’t rely on the sun,” says Cwagenberg. We ran into cloud weather today on Race Day 3 in between control stops. Radio chatter increased among the caravan vehicles, asking for confirmation of cloud cover in order to inform the strategists.

“Clouds are spotty, over.”

“…Can you describe spotty?”

Over the course of the race, Daehler programs her strategy around IBMResearch’s weather models. “We’ve found their models to be more accurate in terms of when clouds will appear.” She then uses the models to calculate how much wattage they could lose, adjusting based on what she hears from the weather vehicle.

But what scares the meteorologist is not the weather Down Under, but up above. The team relies on satellite phone and internet to get access to the latest weather models. “You could throw every type of terrestrial weather in the book at me, but talking away access to data would probably cause the most headache for me.”

No space storms so far and only one full day of racing left today. During a race as tight as this one, they need to know everything they can about it in order to make decisions about the speed Aurum should drive. We are entering Day 4 and are currently over thirty minutes behind neck-and-neck Nuon and Twente, with Tokai hot on our tails.

“But while it’s fun to speculate about other teams, we don’t know their car or their strategy. We know our car and our team, and we can only race our car,” said Josh Agby last night.

Hopes are high. May the weather and more importantly its data be on our side.

Day 3: Holding onto 3rd despite setback 

While Michigan finished the end of Day 3 still in third place, the afternoon brought some challenges for the team. Not long after we in the media van had been discussing how impressive it was that the car hadn't spent any time pulled over, word came over the radio that Aurum was stopped.

Naik grimaced and shook his head. He would have been proud to claim 0 minutes on the side of the Stuart Highway. Alumni have stressed that that's the way to win the race. (Typically, Michigan cars have tended to stop at least once.)

A few minutes after the dispatch, around 2:30 p.m., we caught up to the car in the shoulder, a blur of yellow hazard vests around it. Took the team just a few minutes to fix a mechanical issue with a tire well enough to continue. But it slowed Aurum down. The two Dutch leaders pulled ahead, still within sight of one another. Tokai was still behind Michigan, thanks, in part, to two ten-minute penalties.

In the media van, we asked Naik how he was feeling. "I'm a little disappointed right now, to be honest," he said.

We asked him if he thought this took them out of the running for anything better than third. "No," he said, very sure of himself. "It's not over. We can still do this." Naik was on the 2013 team that finished ninth and crashed just south of where the 2015 team would camp that evening. He has experienced much bigger solar car disappointments. And he knows how quickly races can turn.

The afternoon took Blue through the flatland of South Australia. The occasional trees of the north gave way to gray brush. The sandy desert dirt seemed to redden. Crosswinds picked up, gusting at more than 25 mph.

Tonight's camp has a 360-degree horizon and no opportunities for personal cover until dark. 

We'll post more about the team's mood and their plans in a few hours.

Day 3: Game-changing penalties

Race officials are being generous with penalties this year. Penalties involve teams being held back at control stops for varying lengths of time, depending on the infraction, while other teams pull out ahead. Official race observers ride in every team's chase vehicle (which rides right behind each solar car.) If one of these observers sees a violation, they report it to headquarters in Adelaide. And there, officials decide how many minutes to sentence the team to.

Punch Powertrain received a full hour for a reckless driving maneuver that team members insist didn't occur. They're contesting it and have provided video. The team is holding fast to fifth. 

Tokai has received two 10-minute set-backs. The first for reckless driving of the team's media vehicle and the second for an incident with Michigan on Day 2. As we've mentioned, Tokai was attempting to pass Aurum, but, because it took their Challenger a long time to accelerate, their solar spent a long time in the opposite lane. It ended up forcing Michigan's Chase vehicle (the one that immediately follows Aurum) off the road so that both Chase and Challenger could avoid an oncoming road train.

Officials docked Tokai for it at the Kulgera stop. While the team waited out this second sentence, team director Professor Kota Fukuda contested the ruling. He showed the judges video on his phone. We won't know until the end of the race whether the appeal is granted. If it is, race officials will subtract 10 minutes from Tokai's finishing time.

It's been a tough race for the impeccable Tokai. The team has finished first or second every race since 2009. Tokai is in fourth place at the end of timing.